These perceived excesses-which range from emotional (such as crying) to the physical (from one’s physique to one’s hair)-make women undesirable within their society. Throughout the course of Too Much Cote turns to her theory of ‘too muchness’. Combining cultural criticism with personal experiences Cote examines Victorian classics as well as fiction, films, and songs from the last and the current century. In Too Much: How Victorian Constraints Still Bind Women Today Rachel Vorona Cote’s sets out to address the way in which mores and literature emerging from the Victorian era still bind women today. If you have the time I also recommend Cynthia Nixon’s Be a Lady They Said in which she reads a poem about the impossible and contradictory standards society imposes on women.
Gilbert and Susan Gubar’s The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination. After all, feminism is ‘in’, and there is nothing wrong with jumping on the feminist bandwagon… except that I soon picked up on something rather disconcerting: Cote romanticises and idealises mental illness and self-harming.įrom my rating, and my ranty review below, you can probably guess that I disliked this book, a lot.įor those readers who want to read some interesting, and feminist, analysis of Victorian literature I thoroughly recommend you check out Sandra M. What about female solidarity?īut I could have looked past all of this. Cote’s theory of too muchness is unclear and indecisive, and her chapters do not have clear topics.Īlso, rather than normalising women who are viewed or have been viewed as ‘too much’ Cote glorifies them while tearing down women who do not fall under this category. There are so many referencers to films that are now considered outdated and of little cultural relevance. Its analysis of the social norms and literature emerging from the Victorian era are far from insightful or innovative. This book would have made slightly more sense if it had been published in 2010 instead of 2020. Not only was Too Much not enough but what little it offers is wholly problematic.
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